When it comes to owning and running a successful business, there’s a lot to consider. However, every business owner, from a small-time digital PR agency to a local independent bookstore, will want to save money.
Saving money can be the cornerstone of building up spare capital that can be used as a buffer when things aren’t going as good or when you have a bad month of trading. This extra cash buffer is also useful during the business’s expansion phases and can even help you settle bank loans quickly.
So today, we’ll discuss four money-saving tips for small business owners. Start saving some of that hard-earned cash!
Begin By Saving On Water Bills
Cutting down costs and saving money on your water bills may be obvious if you run a business in hospitality – for example, a restaurant or café. But it may not be obvious if you run your business from something like an office.
But no matter where you decide to run your business, you can save money by cutting down your water usage. Some suggestions for cutting down water usage could be to install water-saving faucets on taps, get more efficient dishwashers (if you use them), and install things like toilet tanks to cut down the water used in each flush.
You’ll be pleasantly surprised at how much money can be saved by implementing these small changes to your everyday operations.
Another great way to save money regarding water bills is to get a better deal from a business water retailer – specifically on wastewater disposal services.
Disposing wastewater can be one of the more costly endeavors for any business, so saving as much as possible during this process is a good way to cut your overall costs.
Always Consider Your Energy Usage
Saving energy is as, if not more important, than saving on water. Every modern business will use energy in their day-to-day operations no matter what they do, and there are very few exceptions to this rule.
Be it an independent grocery store needing electricity for their frozen food freezers or an online enterprise that needs electricity to run its servers and workstations – modern business is very much reliant on electricity and so will use a significant quantity of it.
It would be best to begin by assessing how much energy your business uses and then analysing where to cut down. There are a few ways to do this, but the easiest way is to get a smart reader and start by noting how much energy is used on average.
From this point, you can start introducing energy-saving methods one by one and measuring their impact to see if the money and energy spent saving the energy is worth it.
Some energy-saving techniques could be smart tech, be it plugs, lights, or radiators, that can be remotely accessed for greater control. This allows you to optimise when they are active (or not) to stay on top of usage.
If you own your business property, it may be worth looking into things like solar panels.
Related: How to Save Money on Your New Business
Outsource Smaller Jobs
Outsourcing may, on larger scales, be more expensive – but it can be a very effective money-saving tool for many smaller jobs that your company or business may need.
A prime example is accounting. Why bring on a full-time accountant in-house and pay a full year’s salary when you can easily outsource this to an accounting firm which will be leagues cheaper in the long run?
Another great use of outsourcing is to finish up all those small tasks that your team doesn’t have time to do, or it would be wasteful to assign an in-house employee too (when their time could be better spent for the money you pay them). Examples of these kinds of jobs are data entry or editing and proofreading tasks.
Finding a freelancer to handle these mundane tasks can be relatively cheap on freelancing sites such as Fiverr, PeoplePerHour, UpWork, and many other freelancer hubs. Alternatively, if you don’t want a third party involved as a middleman, you can go to forums such as Reddit’s r/hireme or post a job listing on r/jobs.
Sell On Old Or Spare Equipment
Every business will have old equipment, so why not sell it? There are plenty of ways to sell off equipment such as PC monitors, old laptops, old cookers and microwaves, or just about any other kind of business-related equipment you can think of.
Your first port of call could be online marketplaces such as eBay, Facebook Marketplace or Gumtree to place local ads (cutting out delivery costs). Alternatively, you could find relevant, independently owned shops that may take used equipment for refurbishment purposes – such as a local tech shop or hardware store.
In Summary
Get creative with your money-saving techniques but always start with the big ones; water and energy. These may seem like pennies compared to your monthly turnover, but every penny saved will help in the long run!
